A well known and widely used configuration for CCD charge detection is called a Floating-Diffusion Amplifier (FDA). In this configuration, the signal charge from the CCD is dumped into a reverse biased, floating diffusion node that is periodically reset to a fixed potential. The presence of this signal charge changes the voltage across the diffusion node by a relation inversely proportional to the effective capacitance of the floating diffusion node (i.e., the input capacitance of the amplifier). The noise introduced by a non-ideal reset process is related to the square root of that same capacitance. The signal-to-noise performance of the detector is thus improved if the input capacitance of the amplifier can be reduced. In the past, device processing factors have limited the amount by which such input capacitance can be reduced. For this reason, such factors have also limited the amount by which signal to noise performance can be improved.